I often forget that God is a joyful God and how much joy He experiences in us.

Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Pitchford’s Ramblings has a good, concise article on the Biblical basis for the Doctrine of the Trinity:
Treasuring the Trinity

Many Christians have lost or never learned a sound doctrine of regeneration. They believe that the only thing that matters is their standing with God or with the church. They assume that a past decision for Christ or a decision to affiliate with a congregation determines their standing with God. Having made that decision, they make no effort to allow the Spirit to renew them. The Spirit is not imposed upon us, and Christians must engage in spiritual disciplines that make the Spirit’s work possible in changing our lives at the fundamental level. God’s Spirit empowers us to do what we want to do and makes what we want to do to be what is right so that Christlikeness flows from us naturally.

–David Garland, 2 Corinthians

Related Scripture:
Philippians 2:12-13, 2 Peter 1:3-10

In the last chapter of A.W. Tozer’s book Knowledge of the Holy he spells out six conditions. I’d like to summarize them with just a few added Scripture references. (Click on Scripture references.)

“…this knowledge is difficult because there are conditions to be met and the obstinate nature of fallen man does not take kindly to them.

Let me present a brief summary of these conditions as taught by the Bible and repeated through the centuries by the holiest, sweetest saints the world has ever known:”

“First, we must forsake our sins.”
Isaiah 55:7, Acts 3:19

“Second, there must be an utter committal of the whole life to Christ in faith.”
Psalm 63:8, Psalm 84:1-2, Luke 9:23

“Third, there must be a reckoning of ourselves to have died unto sin and to be alive unto God in Christ Jesus, followed by a throwing open of the entire personality to the inflow of the Holy Spirit.”
Romans 6:3-4, Galatians 2:20, Galatians 5:25

“Fourth, we must boldly repudiate the cheap values of the fallen world and become completely detached in spirit from everything that unbelieving men set their hearts upon, allowing ourselves only the simplest enjoyments of nature which God has bestowed alike upon the just and the unjust.”
Psalm 1:1, Romans 12:2

“Fifth, we must practice the art of long and loving meditation upon the majesty of God.”
Psalm 1:2, Psalm 63:6, Psalm 145:5

“Sixth, as the knowledge of God becomes more wonderful, greater service to our fellow men will become for us imperative. This blessed knowledge is not given to be enjoyed selfishly.”
Matthew 5:16, Ephesians 2:10, Philippians 2:4, Titus 3:8, Titus 3:14, James 2:17-18

Here are some verses you don’t hear about very often. However, they can be strangely comforting.

Exodus 4:11
Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

John MacArthur mentions the one above in a sermon entitled Why Does Evil Dominate the World?

1 Samuel 2:7
The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.

1 Chronicles 29:11-12
11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. 12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.

Job 9:12
Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

Daniel 4:35
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”

Lamentations 3:38
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?

—————

Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is.

A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy

This is the process I’m going through now and may be for the rest of my life. There are so many “conventional religious notions” as Tozer puts it that I have taken for granted. I’m now in the process of carefully going through the New Testament (and later on at least part of the Old Testament) with the help of commentaries to see what’s true and what’s false. For what’s true I want to know Scripture to back it up. And I’ve gotten to the point that whenever I hear something dealing with theology, a person’s opinion or even hearing or reading a verse of the Bible in isolation, I need to look into it.

More importantly I want to know God better through reading His letter to us. How fascinating and unending this is. And it’s not just reading and gaining knowledge, it’s having the Creator as a teacher revealing Himself to us.

I’ve updated the About page with this information.

John MacArthur at Pulpit Magazine is writing a series on Contentment based on Philippians 4:11-12.

In addition to that I’d like to mention that I always used to have Philippians 4:13 memorized without thinking about the context of the two verses before it.

Philippians 4:11-13
Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Jesus did say, “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20) But I think we need to keep Philippians 4:13 in context. All things is referring to being content in every condition of life. This includes being content in prosperity without being proud, greedy, hungering for more etc.

Then in 4:19 he says, “And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (emphasis added) Our perception of our needs and what our needs really are may not line up. But He will supply our true needs and we can learn to be content in them through Him who gives us strength.

I’ve been so busy moving to a new web host and email provider, moving this site from wordpress.com to its own domain and tweaking the look of this site I haven’t had time to get back to posting what I want to post. So today I will punt and post another quote.

Theology is faith seeking understanding, but understanding is more than theoretical. If we really grasp who and where we are as disciples, we should know how to live out our faith. All too often, however, the church professes its faith but is unsure how to practice it. Even some of my seminary students come to theology classes somewhat reluctantly, assuming that doctrine is neither practical nor relevant to their future ministry.

To define doctrine as direction for fitting participation in the drama of redemption – in what God is doing in Christ through the Spirit to form the church and renew creation – is to ensure that the understanding that faith seeks will not stop short of practice. My goal as a theologian is to move beyond the acquisition of knowledge to its application in real life: in a word, I want to get wisdom.

–Kevin Vanhoozer, Theologian

The task of Christian scholarship is to study reality as a manifestation of God’s glory, to speak about it with accuracy, and to savor the beauty of God in it. I think Edwards would regard it as a massive abdication of scholarship that so many Christians do academic work with so little reference to God. If all the universe and everything in it exists by the design of an infinite personal God, to make his manifold glory known and loved, then to treat any subject without reference to God’s glory is not scholarship but insurrection.

–John Piper